"They're wonderful, aren't they?" said
Barry. "I mean all of them, the bush people.
They have to be, to live out here. A miserable,
cranky type would never last in the bush."
Queensland Grows Tamer Toward the Sea
We flew on east across desolation which
now seemed to me less sad. First mulga scrub,
slate green over rusty soil, drowsing under
the westering sun. It stretched away to every
horizon, untouched by man's presence on
what he likes to think is his planet.
But then, long before the coastal ranges
signaled the nearness of our destination, the
land began to change. And its changes were
the work of man. We crossed the Condamine
River, where the brigalow and thick-growing
eucalypts once locked the land in silent for
ests. Now clearings broke the bush, as did
tracts of level, brass-bright wheat.
Farther on, low hills once choked with
jungle wore pastures open to the sky, where
the carcasses of fallen hardwoods rotted in
seas of exuberant grass. Dusk met us as we
crossed the Darling Downs, where homesteads
sat solidly on that plow-tamed and generous
country.
Brisbane's glow lit the sky beyond the range.
"Start letting down, Ken, about 500 per
minute," said Barry.
I set up the descent and watched the big
hills slide under us. A mile-long flaming ser
pent of bush fire writhed out of control on a
slope below, an unnecessary reminder that
the bush is not man's garden yet.
But beyond it the city's lights, shining like
fallen stars upon the darkened land, etched
out the broad contours of the capital. There,
secure from the primeval night, five times
as many Queenslanders as inhabit the whole
awesome emptiness of the outback took their
evening ease.
THE END
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